1Password has faced backlash from its customers and employees over its $300,000 donation to Omacom Foundation, the organization behind the Linux distribution Omarchy. The company became Omacom’s “distinguished corporate patron.” The creator of Omarchy, Danish entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), who developed Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, and Hey, is known for his racist and anti-immigrant views.
The reactions ranged from claims that 1Password was “supporting ethnic cleansing in Europe” to searches for alternative password managers. According to The Verge, some employees also expressed their discomfort with the company’s relationship with DHH in internal communications.
DHH’s controversial statements are not new. In 2023, Duke University Libraries stopped using Basecamp, citing harms linked to the leadership of 37signals, which DHH co-owns. In a post titled “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies,” dated July 21, DHH referred to immigrants as “wolves” and argued that Roma people should be deported if they took over public spaces.
In a Slack message to employees, 1Password co-founder Roustem Karimov said that people could hold different personal views and that those criticizing DHH should not exclude employees who think differently by claiming moral superiority. CEO David Faugno, meanwhile, stressed that the company did not support DHH’s hateful, dehumanizing, or exclusionary views.
Faugno said the donation was made to Omacom Foundation, not to an individual, but that they were aware of its relationship with Omarchy’s founder. He also said that Omarchy was the second most widely used Linux distribution among 1Password users. The company did not respond to questions submitted on August 31 by the time of publication.
The foundation’s 12 “founding patrons” include Patrick Collison, Michael Dell, Jack Dorsey, and Tobias Lütke; each contributed $1 million. DHH also donated the same amount to the project.
Background
Linux is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 2 reports mentioning it in the past 90 days; the latest was dated August 31, 2026.